Tasmania in March 2007Near-average rain,
temperatures up a little

Summary

Rainfall was about average across much of Tasmania during
March, although there were some patches drier than average and some
wetter, mostly the result of cold fronts toward the end of the
month. Temperatures were generally above average, although not by
nearly as much as in February.

Details

Average rainfall across most of the state: In
contrast
to the persistent pattern of easterlies seen in February, March saw
more autumn-like conditions with westerlies and cold fronts bringing
rain and showers, especially to western
districts. Consequently, rainfall was about average across
most of the state. It was drier than average in parts of the
southeast, including the lower Derwent Valley and the southern
Midlands. Cold fronts, particularly systems that crossed on the 23rd
and the 29th, brought above-average falls to the western
highlands. A low near the state at the start of March brought rain to
the eastern half, ensuring that the central east coast had
above-average rain for the month.

A few hot days: Although
there were more cool days than warm ones during the month, there were a
few especially
hot days, particularly on the
3rd, 15th, 22nd and 23rd. Wynyard had its highest
March temperature on record on the 23rd, the same day
that Flinders Island Airport reached 33.4°C. Over the
month, daytime temperatures were above average across the state,
typically by about
half to one degree. The far northwest, the central north and the
northern east coast were a little warmer still: Wynyard
and Eddystone Point had their highest
March mean daily maximum temperature on record.

Several cool nights: Cold
nights were more common than warm ones during the month, but some
especially warm mornings (the first three mornings, on the 16th, and
again on the 23rd) ensured minimum temperatures for the month were
slightly above average overall, although generally by less than half a
degree. Especially cold nights occurred on the 6th,
the 18th (when Liawenee dropped to −2.8°C), the 25th and the
26th.

Notes

This statement has been
prepared based on information available at
10 am on Monday 2 April 2007.
Some checks have been made on the data, but it is possible that results
will change
as new information becomes available.

Normals are long-term means based
on observations
from all available years of record, which vary widely from site to
site.
They are not shown for sites with less than 10 years of record, as they
cannot then be calculated reliably.
The median
is sometimes more representative than the
mean
of "normal" rain.

The Rank indicates how rainfall
this time compares
with the climate record for the site,
based on the decile
ranking (very low rainfall is in decile 1,
low in decile 2 or 3,
normal in decile 4 to 7, high in
decile 8 or 9 and very high is in decile 10).
The Fraction of normal shows how much
rain has fallen this time as a
percentage
of the long-term mean.